I knew a guy (colleague at work) who I became good friends with for a while, some years ago. He was a posh, very posh chap who was actually a rather kind soul. He attended THE 'best' schools in the UK - by best, I mean the most expensive boarding schools - those places where people other than your parents raise you to adulthood. I was a mere oik, but we shared humour and a sense of naughtiness, so we hit it off.
After we'd been working together for a while, I noticed that every Monday morning he came to the office looking like shite. I mean, dark rings under his bloodshot eyes, barely functioning at coherant level, wrecked - that sort of thing. I assumed, for months, that he was getting properly trashed at the weekends on booze, drugs and all the other things that the wealthy could afford to indulge in, in abundance, if they so wish.
However, I spent some time with him outside work and discovered he was 'everything in moderation' and anti-drug.
So I asked him what was up with the Monday morning wretchedness.
And he told me.
His parents, whom were extremely wealthy, were very keen to produce a son and heir to inherit his fathers business concerns. It took several attempts for the first male heir to appear - and by the time he did, both parents were far too busy and remote to care for him. They had fulfilled their perceived duty to the ways things are done and popped him into the care of a live-in nanny from birth onwards.
At 6 years old he was sent to boarding school. He was so overwrought by the experience that his parents relunctantly agreed he should attend on a half-board basis - coming home to stay on Friday night and going back to the school to stay on a Monday morning.
This was the arrangement for 12 years - his entire childhood - until he was 18.
He so hated the boarding school - and he never got into specifics of what went on there, beyond fagging - that his entire weekend was blighted by the knowledge that he would have to return there on Monday morning. In fact, for him, there was no relief in coming home on a Friday night - it merely portended his return on Monday morning.
I met him when he was 25. He still did not sleep on a Sunday night.

Hundreds of children who died at Scottish orphanage run by Catholic nuns 'are found buried in a mass unmarked grave'

Hundreds of orphan children believed to have been dumped in a mass grave
They were residents of the Smyllum Park orphanage in Lanark, Scotland
Nuns previously acknowledged some children were buried in town's cemetery
But an investigation has revealed that hundreds of bodies were recovered

By Sam Walker For The Scottish Daily Mail PUBLISHED: 10:20, 11 September 2017

Up to 400 children who died at a Scottish orphanage are believed to have been dumped in a mass grave, research has revealed.
The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul ran the Smyllum Park orphanage in Lanark from 1864 until it closed in 1981.
The nuns previously acknowledged that children had been buried in 158 compartments in the town's St Mary's Cemetery.
But a joint investigation by the BBC's File on Four programme and the Sunday Post newspaper has shown 402 children died at the orphanage.
It is thought that most were buried in an unmarked section at St Mary's.
Former First Minister Jack McConnell, who apologised on behalf of the Scottish Government to victims of care home abuse in 2004, said: 'After so many years of silence, we must now know the truth of what happened.'

Analysis of 15,000 records has found that an average of one child died at the home every three months.
It is believed most, without families able to pay for funerals, were buried at St Mary's.
As the youngsters were from places across Scotland, spot checks with other authorities found only two were laid to rest elsewhere.
A total of 11,601 residents passed through Smyllum Park during its decades in operation, according to evidence given at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.
Records show names and dates of birth and death. Descriptions of causes of death include accidents and diseases of the time such as TB, flu and scarlet fever. Some died of malnutrition.

It means the death rate among residents, aged one to 14, was at least 30 deaths per 1,000.
According to National Records of Scotland figures, the highest mortality rate among this age group was in 1901 when 10.4 deaths per 1,000 were recorded.
Janice Carberry, whose brother David passed away in 1952 at the age of four, said there were no records showing where he was buried.
But she claimed one of her brothers had been told the boy was put in St Mary's cemetery 'in a wee corner of grass'.
Eddie McColl, 73, a former resident at Smyllum along with four of his siblings, lost his brother Francis, 13, in August 1961.

Mr McColl, who had left the orphanage by that time, was only told by the nuns that his brother had died after an accident.
But the pensioner said: 'I've heard from kids who were at Smyllum that someone was showing them how to use a golf club and asked them to step back. But Francis didn't hear it and got struck on the head, that's what killed him.
'Smyllum was a hell. I have no idea where he is buried and have asked the Daughters of Charity repeatedly.'
In a statement, the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul said: 'We are core participants in the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry and are co-operating fully with that inquiry.
'We remain of the view that this inquiry is the most appropriate forum for such investigations.

'Given the ongoing work of the inquiry, we do not wish to provide any interviews.
'We wish to again make clear that our values are totally against any form of abuse and thus we offer our most sincere and heartfelt apology to anyone who suffered any form of abuse while in our care.'
The charity has previously appeared at the inquiry in Edinburgh where it claimed there was no evidence of abuse or mistreatment. But it has been called back to give further evidence in November.
The hearing will also consider four other residential care establishments run by the Daughters of Charity.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: 'Clearly these are serious allegations and our thoughts are with the families of those affected.
'We recognise the great hurt and damage caused to those who were abused in childhood by the very individuals and institutions who should have cared for them.
'That is why we established an independent inquiry into the abuse of children in care.'

I am genuinely confused following today’s official police report that paedophilia allegations against Edward Heath were credible enough to bear investigation. It does not surprise me that powerful politicians were protected from investigation in their lifetime. It is sad and sick, but not surprising. In the large majority of cases – Heath, Janner, Brittan, Freud, Smith, activities at Elm Guest House and Dolphin Square and more – we will never really know the full truth.

But my confusion is this.

These are not “copycat” allegations, because they were hushed up at the time. Yet there were, undeniably, a total of scores of allegations of paedophile abuse against politicians, spread right across the country, made by people nobody listened to and who in the vast majority of cases had no knowledge of each other.

Now there are not a similar tranche of historic allegations of other crimes against politicians. There is no evidence of historic shoplifting allegations, and surprising little of historic fraud and corruption allegations. Sexually, there is some limited number of historic adult rape allegations, but not nearly on the scale of the historic paedophilia allegations.

Why? It is not a rhetorical question. I genuinely do not understand it.

Paedophilia is in fact thankfully rare in society. It is notoriously difficult to estimate but medical authorities rate sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children at around 2% of the male population. But that is a figure for those who feel any kind of attraction, not for those who are prepared to act on it. That figure is far, far smaller. But it is very hard to quantify. There are approximately 20,000 convictions per year in the UK, but as the crime mostly happens within families that is certainly an understatement of the incidence. Most of the convictions also involve a family relationship.

To my knowledge, no significant proportion of the historic allegations against politicians involve their own family members. This makes them part of a still rarer group, those who set out to procure the sexual services of children with whom they have no connection. I do not see any room to doubt that Parliament had, over a period of decades, an incidence of criminals that indulged in this odious pattern of behaviour, that was very much higher than the incidence in the general population.

I ask again, why? I do not think power and impunity is enough of an answer. They were doing something the vast, vast majority of us would never do, no matter how sure to “get away with it”.

I can only think of two explanations. The first, and unlikely, is some sort of organisation of paedophiles designed to help each other into parliament. The second and probable explanation is that the desire for political power often reflects a personality disorder which leads to other aberrant behaviour, such as paedophilia.

It is rather important for society that we come to understand this, as it has severe implications for the way we organise society. Unfortunately, Theresa May, whether by design or incompetence, made such a pig’s ear of the Inquiry into historic child abuse, I fear our best chance has passed.